Brooks on Obama

by Editor
November 18, 2014 at 9:38 am

http://www.smartertimes.com/1321/brooks-on-obama

David Brooks uses the term "Gruberism" — defined as "the belief that everybody else is slightly dumber and less well-motivated than oneself and, therefore, politics is more about manipulation than conversation" — in his column today. I used the same term yesterday at FutureOfCapitalism.com. It's a pretty good column as Brooks columns go, but it is marred by a puzzling sentence toward the beginning: "President Obama has racked up some impressive foreign-policy accomplishments, but, domestically and politically, things are off the rails."

Max Boot flagged that sentence for me. Mr. Brooks doesn't enumerate any of these "impressive foreign-policy accomplishments," and I must say I follow foreign-policy news pretty closely and am hard pressed to come up with much of a list. The "reset" of relations with Russia? The ouster of President Assad? The defeat of the Islamic State? The peace between Israel and the Palestinians? The defense of democracy in Hong Kong? It would make a fine follow up column for Mr. Brooks.

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